Truth or Dare
by dramatic owl
Summary: Helga wondered if maybe she should've chosen 'truth' instead of 'dare' after all.


Writing for ladiesbingo and genprompt_bingo for the prompt: Season of Mists (Autumn Colours, Sensations, Activities and Festivals).

This story follows the arc that was conceived for the potential spin-off 'The Patakis' that never happened, and ignores the events of 'The Jungle Movie'. It also references the 'Crabby Author' episode.

* * *

Elk Island was beautiful when autumn was in full swing, covered in a canopy of red, yellow, and amber, its grounds carpeted with the painted fallen leaves. It was a small island, mostly used for hiking, camping, and the reenactment of the Pig War at the old British fort, with only one residential house remaining.

Helga Pataki stood outside the low wooden fence, studying that house apprehensively and wondering if maybe she should've chosen 'truth' instead of 'dare' at the previous night's slumber party after all. The small house was worse for wear and one of the front window shutters hung half off the frame from a single hinge, swinging precariously in the wind with a loud creak.

"Well?" Rhonda called out from the island's small dock. "What are you waiting for?"

"I'm going!" Helga flashed a scowl at the group of girls and specifically at Rhonda Wellington Lloyd, the ringleader who had decided on this dare for her. She adjusted her maroon beanie, tugged her matching jacket down, then pulled the gate open and marched into the front yard. She didn't want anyone to know that she was scared. "What a bunch of hooey! I dare all you crybabies to come in with me!"

"And don't forget to bring something from inside the house as proof!"

Like every other city, Hillwood had its share of urban legends. Monkey Man, Pigeon Man, Wheezin' Ed, so many others. The legends circulated among adults and kids alike, and had been handed down from generation to generation. But none of the stories captivated like the newest story of Agatha Caulfield's house on Elk Island, said to be haunted by her spirit.

It was said the reclusive author of children's books had been angry and miserable in the last years of her life. It was said that she'd remained angry and miserable in spirit, and that it was this unyielding anger and misery that fascinated everyone. Agatha Caulfield had no kith or kin, so there was nobody to inherit her home and property. The house still stood empty three years after her passing, its status in limbo because no one could or would go inside. Legend had it that those who tried to enter the premises had been ordered out of the house by a ghostly voice. One man claimed that he was physically pushed out the door by an unseen force.

Helga reached the front door and knocked tentatively, chiding herself immediately for being so foolish.

"Criminy, like anyone's going to answer."

She put her hand on the knob. If she jiggled it and it didn't move it would mean the house was locked up and, well, there was nothing she could do about that. She would just have to turn around and go back to the dock where the others waited.

Her heart pounded in her ears. The knob turned easily, and she snatched her hand back as if it had been burned, cursed Rhonda for her lousy 'dare' idea, at Halloween of all times, and berated herself again for choosing 'dare' instead of 'truth'. So what if Rhonda asked her which boy she liked? Would admitting her innermost secret, that she pined terribly for Arnold, who had moved out of town two years ago, be worse than this?

Yes, she decided after giving it some more thought. Better to confront an angry ghost than for the other girls to discover how pathetic she was. Anyway, she'd read and loved all of Agatha Caulfield's books, and even now, at the age of thirteen, she often re-read those beloved childhood stories.

Helga took a deep breath and reached for the knob again, hesitating when she thought she heard the clicking of typewriter keys and the ding of a carriage return through the window. The curtains in both windows on either side of the front door were drawn, so she couldn't peek in.

Gathering her courage, she decided it was all her imagination and the sooner she got this done with the better. She turned the knob, and pushed the door open. The front door led right into the main room, which didn't contain much other than bookshelves and a desk with a typewriter, everything covered in dust. Next to the desk a wastebasket was filled to the brim with crumpled paper, some of which had tumbled onto the floor, and some actual Agatha Caulfield books that the author, or someone, had thrown out.

There were only two other rooms in the house, the bedroom and kitchen. Both were as empty and silent as the main room. No dust covers had been placed over anything, no doubt because everyone who came to work in the house was scared off, so other than the coating of dust over everything the house looked the same as it must've when the author lived here.

Admittedly she felt odd standing in the empty bedroom in an empty house that had once belonged to a dead person, filled with the things that had been theirs. But there was no ghost.

"I knew it! I knew it was all a bunch of hooey!"

Helga stomped back into the main room, annoyed at herself for being scared for nothing, annoyed at Rhonda for giving her this dare and successfully making her nervous. She stopped at the wastepaper basket and snatched up one of the crumpled papers to take with her as proof.

An idea came to her as she was about to leave and she began to cackle to herself. She poked her head through the open front door and let out a long blood-curdling scream. Then she hid behind the door and waited for the girls to come, which took several minutes.

"Probably because they're too scared," Helga snorted.

She could hear their nervous _sotto voce_ chatter outside as they approached the house and laughed to herself again.

They finally entered slowly, tentatively, afraid to get too far from the door. Helga waited for the last girl to step in far enough, then slammed the door behind them with a shouted "Boo!"

She leaned against the door and laughed hysterically at their screams. Their horrified expressions quickly turned to annoyance.

"Helga! You're such a jerk!"

"Oh, lighten up, Rhonda. I just wanted to get you all in here and scare you a little."

Phoebe was wiping away tears. "That was cruel, Helga. We were really worried that something happened to you."

"Hey, if I had to come in here, I wanted you all to have to, too. Come on, you have to admit I played it well."

"Yes, you're a real scream queen, Helga."

"This house has a very strange aura." Sheena shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. "We should leave."

Lila and Nadine seemed apprehensive too.

"I'm ever so certain that it's disrespectful for us to be in here. Rhonda, maybe you shouldn't be touching her things."

"Ugh, look at this place. It's a dust heap," Rhonda remarked in disgust, inspecting the room now, running a finger over the desk and typewriter, rubbing her fingers together to brush off the dust that clung to her skin.

"Well, yeah. Nobody's been in here to dust the place for, like, three years, Rhonda."

"I know the story, Helga—"

"Hey! What are you rotten kids doing in my house?" a gruff, gravelly woman's voice thundered from thin air. "Get out of here! Scram!"

They all went white and screamed, tore out of the house in a herd, and ran through the gate down to the dock where Sheena's uncle, the ferryboatman, waited to take them away from the island and back to the mainland.

#

"That was close," Phoebe said, "but you have to admit it's pretty exciting that we have something to add to the urban legend."

With Elk Island and Agatha Caulfield's house behind them, the girls had settled down somewhat. They sat around one of the circular tables inside the Hillwood Bean now, fighting the chill of both autumn and their encounter on the island with tall cups of hot cocoa topped with a large marshmallow.

"Good thinking, Pheebs. Everyone and their brother has a story about the voice. We should embellish ours with something more."

"Okay. But that was still a dirty trick you pulled, Helga."

"You're the one who came up with that dare, Rhonda."

"Phoebe's right, though," Nadine said. "Think of the stories we can tell about this. Nobody will know what really happened besides us."

"And the ghost of Agatha Caulfield," Sheena added nervously. "I hope we haven't incurred her wrath."

Helga snorted. "Oh, please. She's probably stuck in that house, like in _Beetlejuice_."

"I don't think so, Sheena," Lila assured her. "She sounded crabby, not vengeful. Like she just wanted to be left alone."

"Remember when Arnold did a book report on her?" Nadine said. "He did say in not so many words that she was just a cranky old bat."

"I still love her books though."

"Yeah, me too. I still have them all on my bookshelves," Helga admitted. "I re-read them sometimes."

"Me, too," everyone chimed in.

"So," Rhonda said. There was a glint in her eye that grabbed everyone's attention. "What story do we want to tell everyone to make it sound really good? We should make sure we all coordinate."


End file.
